SCS Graduate Application Fee Waiver
The School of Computer Science offers graduate application fee waivers for reasons related to financial hardship and to participants of certain programs.
Please note that applicants who are granted a fee waiver will be reviewed for admission in the same manner as all other applicants. Reviewers of your academic credentials will not have access to any information about fee waiver requests.
Waivers for Participants of Programs
We provide fee waivers for participants of certain programs and organizations (see the list below). If you qualify, you are able to submit your fee waiver right from the SCS Graduate Application's application/payment screen. After selecting your program, include evidence of participation by uploading the appropriate documents (receipt for registration, membership card, certificates of participation, etc.). Application fees will be waived for up to two of our programs.
| Program | Short Name |
| AccessComputing | |
| ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing | |
| American Indian Science and Engineering Society | AISES |
| Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists | ABRCMS |
| Asian American and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions | AAPISIs |
| Association for Computing Machinery's Council on Women in Computing | ACM-W |
| Black in AI | BAI |
| CMU alums who graduated with one or more degrees at any level (undergrad, master's or Ph.D.) in any department/college at CMU. | CMU Alum |
| CMU Rales Fellows | |
| CMU students currently enrolled in a degree-granting program at any level (undergrad, master's or Ph.D.) in any department/college at CMU. | CMU Student |
| Cientifico Latino | |
| CodePath | |
| Engineers Without Borders | EWB |
| Fulbright | |
| Gates Millennium Scholars | |
| GEM Fellowship Program | GEM |
| Grace Hopper Celebration | |
| Hey, Let's Chat!: Black in HCI | |
| HCII Summer Undergraduate Research Program at CMU | |
| Hispanic-Serving Institutions | HSIs |
| Historically Black Colleges and Universities | HBCUs |
| International Society for Computational Biology | ISCB |
| Jack Kent Cooke Foundation | |
| Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholars Program | |
| LatinX in AI | LXAI |
| Leadership Alliance Summer Research Early Identification Program | |
| LearnLab Summer School at CMU | |
| Lesbians Who Tech | |
| Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation | LSAMP |
| Masakhane NLP | |
| McNair Scholars | |
| Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program | MMUF |
| National Society of Black Engineers | NSBE |
| NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships | CSGrad4US |
| Out for Undergrad O4U Tech | |
Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics | oSTEM |
| Queer in AI | |
| Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Programming Languages | REPL |
| Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Software Engineering Program at CMU | REUSE |
| Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing & Technology Conference | RESPECT |
| Rewriting the Code | |
| Robotics Institute Summer Scholars at CMU | RISS |
| Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science | SACNAS |
| Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers | SASE |
| Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers | SHPE |
| Society of Women Engineers | SWE |
| The Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program | CSTEP |
| The Sadie Collective | |
| Tribal Colleges and Universities | TCUs |
| UC LEADS | |
| United States Military | |
| VEF 2.0 Program | |
| Vingroup | |
| Widening NLP | |
| Women in Cybersecurity Conference | WiCyS |
| Women in Data Science Worldwide | WiDs |
Women Engineers Program | |
| Women in Machine Learning | WiML |
Women Techmakers (Google for Developers) | |
| Women Who Code |
We are no longer accepting new suggestions for this application cycle, any suggestions will be looked at in the fall of 2025. If you would like to suggest an organization/event for us to add to our list above, please complete our suggestion form with the name of the organization/event and a link to a website or provide another source of background information about the organization/event. We will update our organization/event list on November 5, 2025.
Waivers Related to Financial Hardship
- If the application fee presents financial hardship to the applicant, we will consider a fee waiver request.
- If you are currently attending a U.S. based institution and feel that you are financially unable to pay, obtain a letter from your Financial Aid Office explaining your inability to pay and their support of a waiver. Upon receipt of this letter, your fee will be waived.
- If you are not a current student, are living outside of the U.S., or are unable to obtain a financial aid letter, include a brief description of your financial need and any documentation that supports your request (such as a tax return form, W2, etc.).
- Please do not include information about exchange rates, we are aware of those situations.
- After submission we will confirm your need and waive the application fees for up to two programs.
Financial Fee Waiver Deadline
- We will accept financial fee waiver requests starting on September 4, 2024.
- The final deadline to submit a financial fee waiver request is December 4, 2024 at 3 p.m. EST.
- We will not consider any late submissions by email.
The Financial Fee Waiver Request Form is closed for the 24-25 application season.